In my social sphere’s I feel that I have a good amount of diversity in age. I have been working at a daycare over summers and holidays, so that gives me experience and time with children from ages 6 weeks to six years old. At that workplace my co-workers are also varied ages from older women to ones just out of college. I do wish I had more contact and interaction with elderly people though. I have my grandparents and great aunts and uncles, yet, I only tend to see most of them during holidays or special gatherings. Other than elderly family members, or my friends elderly family members I hardly have any interaction. I think elderly people are kind, loving, and have so many stories to tell, that it would be enjoyable to spend sometime with that generation.
Our society is very segregated by age, making it difficult to all interact. When in school you are in classes based on your age, in college you mostly live/interact with people around your age, even sports clubs can have “special age rooms or classes”. At restaurants, or a museum sometimes elderly get a special price at a certain time. When someone gets older there are exclusive age communities they can move into, or a nursing home that is filled with all fellow elderly people. Someone can’t drive a car until they are 16, drink alcohol until 21, vote until 18, it seems are though a lot of events in ones life are marginalized by how old someone is.
I think it would be beneficial if our society begun to integrate different ages and generations. We need to start challenging age-based segregation and rules. Everyone matures at a different age, and sometimes this age regulations do not fit a specific individuals level of maturity. If we started integrating different ages, I feel people would appreciate each other more, and would learn a lot about life lessons. The saying “history repeats itself” partially happens because we all don’t communicate well, and don’t listen to past generations experiences. Some ways people could interact more with other generations could be volunteering at a nursing home, not judging someone based on how old they may be and start a conversation, organizing town activities for all ages to join in on so that people can begin meeting each other, and also just try to be more open-minded and curious about others life stories. This way younger people will learn what to do and not to do in particular life situations, and elderly people can keep their spirits and life energetic by being around young people’s energy!
No comments:
Post a Comment